


winter days and summer nights

by realheroesweartights



Category: Power Rangers, Power Rangers R.P.M.
Genre: F/M, I don't even know what this is but eh, M/M, TW: Suicide, also can you tell I don't know how to format bc i don't ha
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-16
Updated: 2015-03-16
Packaged: 2018-03-18 05:30:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3557888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/realheroesweartights/pseuds/realheroesweartights
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>or, the loss of sigmund "ziggy" grover.</p>
            </blockquote>





	winter days and summer nights

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this in about twenty minutes today. It's the first straight writing I've done in about three years. I wasn't really going to publish it until a friend of mine said I should so here we are, I guess.   
> Please do not read if you are triggered by suicide, especially graphic descriptions.  
> This takes place about four months after Danger and Destiny.

They keep telling him it’s not his fault. He doesn’t believe them.  
It was him that left four months, two weeks, and five days ago. It was him that didn’t say a word as he left behind the one true friend he thought he might have ever had. It was him that didn’t pull away when Summer—the one he was statistically proved to be in love with, according to Dr. K—slipped her hand into his on that first venture out into the world.  
The sky had been clear, truly clear, for the first time in years. He could feel a warm breeze on his skin and running through his hair, and he had seen his sister run forth with the same power and assurance she always did, her smile matching his. They had bickered over what to name their new colony, what to build houses from, what the economy should be, how many people they should bring out at once. At the end of each day, he had let Summer slip her hand into his again as he watched the sun set for the first time outside of Corinth.  
Tenaya was good. Summer was pure. Perhaps he was good too.

The man standing at the front of the church keeps calling him Sigmund. He fights the urge to scream.  
Sigmund was a good man. Sigmund had a loving family of friends. Sigmund laid his life on the line to rescue the city. Sigmund this, Sigmund that, blah fucking blah.  
All he wants to do is scream and tell them all the real story. Sigmund wasn’t a good man. Sigmund was a coward and a thief and a flirt and he never took anything seriously a day in his life. Sigmund had no family, only friends, or rather people he latched onto until they agreed to tolerate him. Sigmund lost his life to a shotgun left over from his cartel days and he never could have gone out any other way. Sigmund had to make a scene. No, not Sigmund. Something else.  
What was that little bastard’s name?  
Summer squeezes his hand, tears running down her face, and he forces himself to squeeze it back.

Summer hates him. Summer hates him and Tenaya hates him and Dr. K most certainly hates him. Scott hates him too, and Gem and Gemma and Flynn and everyone else. There is not a single person on earth he can call his friend.  
They don’t say it—at least, not to his face. But he knows. He sees it in their eyes, the way just one glance from him can make them shiver and turn towards someone else. He hears it in the whispers, at night, when he’s supposed to be trying to fight off the nightmares.  
“Maybe you should stay in Corinth longer.”  
“Or maybe he should just stay by himself.” _Shut up, Tenaya,_ he finds himself thinking, and he can’t decide which part of himself is speaking.  
“No. We don’t leave Rangers behind, no matter what.” Summer. Summer is good. He forces himself to focus on Summer, all soft curves and gentle whispers and warmth. Winter, he realizes finally, must be the name of the boy they all lost months ago. Winter, with his hard lines and brash words and shivers that never went away even as he was held through the night. Metal never did warm too quickly.  
He wants Winter back.

“Do you have any memory of childhood?”  
“No.”  
“None whatsoever?”  
“None.”  
“You know this won’t work, Dillon, if you don’t want it to.”  
“I don’t want to forget.”  
“His death wasn’t your fault. Mr. Grover was suicidal, Dillon—“  
“Winter. His name was Winter. I remember.”  
Silence.  
“I think that should be all for today.”

Summer leaves after the fourth therapist gives up.  
“You know I love you,” she whispers, and her voice is raspy and there are waterfalls forming on her smooth cheeks that he’s caressed too many times to count. He wants her to stop.  
“But I can’t live like this, Dillon. All of the therapy, never knowing if you’re going to have a good day or a bad one… I don’t want to give up on you. This isn’t giving up.”  
She’s never been a good liar.  
“I’ll come back after Tenaya and I have had the chance to bring more people out. Okay? And we’ll see how you’re doing.” She wraps her arms around him and his body makes him do the same.  
The warmth doesn’t stay long after she leaves. 

It isn’t until halfway until December, on that one day a month that Summer calls Flynn and he gets to hear her voice again, that Winter comes.  
He’s supposed to be sleeping in Flynn’s father’s guest room. It would be a nice arrangement if the nightmares didn’t keep him awake and leave one of his former friends to put him together again come sunrise.  
That night, however, he does dream. And Winter comes.  
“Dillon.” He’s heard the name far too many times over this year. He’s only listened once.  
Winter comes to him wearing a green shirt and a black jacket and those stupid skinny jeans that make him look like he’s five years old. His hair is still messy beyond belief and his smile is wide but his eyes make him look too wise. It’s not natural and he finds himself wanting to run before he realizes the only places left to run to are the other corners of his mind. So he stays.  
There is snow surrounding them, flurrying down to cover their shoes. Rather, his shoes, he thinks, as he realizes that Winter’s feet don’t quite reach the ground. He supposes that explains why Winter looks almost as tall as him now.  
“Dillon,” Winter says again, and the memories restore themselves in the blink of an eye.

_“Dillon!” Falling freely, losing everything, arms around his waist, particles rearranging, lowering them to the ground—_

_A touch between hands, handing off his morpher, cold skin meeting colder skin—_

_Nights spent together, lips on neck, hands on waist, whispered words, secrets told under the covers—_

_One last hug, arms wrapped tightly around the other’s waist, smiling as he stood up on his tiptoes, pulling away, leaving—_

_Coming home, walking straight into the school, knocking on a classroom door, opening it, seeing the blood on the floor, tangled in his hair, everywhere—_

_Ziggy._

The name is what pulls him out of his sleep with a scream louder than any he has ever unleashed. Scott and Flynn rush in with tired eyes to try to restrain him before he breaks too much of the furniture, but he does nothing. Ziggy. That was his name. Things will be alright.

One day after the dream, he starts making an effort to talk with his new therapist.  
Two months after the dream, he stops having nightmares. Flynn gets to sleep for the first night in ages.  
Five months after the dream, Summer returns to him. The group gets together and they all pretend not to notice the empty seat in the garage.  
A year later, he finally allows himself to love her.  
Life goes on.


End file.
